The Harrowing of a Slider
by Imperial Knight
Summary: A group of five Slider spirits are sent to stop the unraveling of the Muv-Luv within the chaos of Hypertime within the Entropic Void, a sentient extra-dimensional plane that consumes entire realities and whose Legions consume the stars in order to complete their Harrowing, a Rite of Passage that seeks to reunite the unraveling threads of Earth once more with the realms of Heaven.
1. Chapter 1

Dr. Yuuko Kouzuki walks toward the elevator leading to the restricted lower levels with a small girl in tow and a twenty-something woman bearing Captain bars and a 9 mm pistol at her side. Their destination was a small sealed TSF hanger were four of the most unusual of all prizes ever kept sleep in cryostasis.

"XO, please forgive me for saying this but I don't see why you want me to go to a hanger that has never been commissioned since the base was constructed. May I ask what it is you hope to find in a mothballed TSF hanger on the lower levels that requires me to arm myself?"

The doctor glances down at the datapad in her hands for a moment before pushing the call button for the level. "In that order, you will see why soon enough; yes you may ask; and if I need you to use it."

The young woman fell silent. She understand all too well that if the XO did not find it essential for her to know something then no more information would be forthcoming. She was already tense having received this bizarre and cryptic order delivered by Kasumi to arm herself and report to the XO's side ASAP. At this time of night, she should be sleeping with her Valkyries at the barracks recovering from her last mission for the XO.

With no other choice left to her, she inwardly resigned herself to be ready for anything.

What she found upon stepping into the forgotten hanger stole her breath away. In front of her on a raised platform normally used to store ammo containers were four U.S. made cryogenic stasis pods.

She only recognized them from a half remembered conversation with a strange U.N lieutenant that collected odd magazine articles on the latest U.S. medical technology released to the their public.

These four occupied pods were shaped like open glass tubes pneumatically sealed and fed a pressurized cryogenic gas used for long-term stasis of the occupant in a state that supported basic life functions. In this way their muscles didn't atrophy and things like breath, heartbeat, etc continued inside thus allowing the theory went medical researchers enough time to develop a cure for whatever the terminal ill patient inside was suffering from.

Ever since she had heard the excited lieutenant's annoying techno-babble, she could not understand why the Americans would waste such effort developing such technology. Humanity had very few resources left in the wake of the BETA and Time was certainly not one of them. Wasting so much brainpower and talent on something so superfluous when such energies could have been better spent elsewhere had made her furious at the time. Humanity already had an impossible task just keeping those already fit and healthy alive and holding the BETA back long enough to-

"Isumi?" The doctor voice cut through her frustration like a knife. Furious at herself for the lapse she quickly replies. "Sorry, Doctor." She rejoins her place at the doctor's side and scrutinizes the people within the pod more carefully.

The blue-white hue given off by the atmosphere within the capsule's composite clear material that made up the sides of the cylinder shaped pods seems deliberately designed from a purely aesthetic viewpoint to look like clear plexiglass tombs for state heroes of a bygone era. At least the affectation allowed her to clearly see what had caused the XO to pull her from her bed in the middle of the night.

From left to right, there were two girls and two boys all together. Judging from their looks she would guess that they would be somewhere between 18-21 years old.

The girl at the far end looked Japanese, her ebony hair hanging well beyond regulation length over her shoulder down to her narrow waistline. The girl's tall frame and composed expression seemed more suited to a dancing in some traditional Japanese play than fighting on a war front.

The next one in line was another girl who had the high cheekbones and slight narrow profile of the native-born Muscovite Russian she had seen with the pale white skin and blond hair to match making her look like a someone had put some strange adult sized pixie in a freezer for twenty years. Any minute she expected this one to wake up pull a wand out and recite strange incantations to magical fairy dust.

The next one was a tall male with broad shoulders, lanky black hair, and olive skin giving him a decidedly Mediterranean look. Not that there were many of those left but she knew from the few Mediterranean hued Italian Eishi that she had seen off and on during the years she had spent at the PX. This one's broad face was frozen in a perpetual smile as if savoring some secret joke with Death itself.

The last male looked like he came from Britain or America, his tanned white skin, medium build, average height shoulder length platinum blond hair, long neck, and round face seeming to mark him as the youngest of the bunch but another look at the hard careworn lines upon the face under the eyes did much to offset that impression.

"This one. He's the leader...Kasumi...please open this one up and stay behind us." The girl nods and steps up on to the platform to punch a coded activation sequence into the pad's control unit before quickly talking to her place at Dr. Kouzuki's behind her and to the left while she takes her right side.

The XO turns and offers smile at her. "Isumi, you are likely to see some strange things in the next few minutes but whatever you do please don't shoot until I say so. It was such a monumental headache collecting them in the first place, and they are very important to the future of humanity. I don't want to kill them unless I have no other choice."

"Understood, ma'am!" She replies smartly. Taking this as her cue, the Captain pulls her sidearm and positions herself to fire the last male lying in his cryogenically suspended state taking her position to the XO's right side.

"Oh and if I do tell you to shoot make sure you kill him in one shot. Aim for either the heart or neck. You won't get a second shot. Remember, we need them alive if possible." Her XO tells her as they watch the capsule go rotate through its activation sequence.

A tense minute passes before the lid makes a musical chime and the seal on the capsule releases. A pneumatic hiss echoes from the hanger's reinforced walls before the semicircular halves of the lid recedes smoothly into the lower half of the capsule hidden along with the countless complex electronics that underlay its life suspending function.

Barely a moment passes before the figure lying in state inside draws in a sharp intake of the stale hanger before coughing violently. The figure groans before a raspy voice voice sounding rough from long disuse. "...whe-re am ...I? wh-at happened" The figure blinks a pair of unfocused green eyes that blinks away small tears...that glow?

Her hand tightens on her small weapon her finger along the length of the barrel twitches slightly in the standby position.

"(In English) Please stay calm, Mr. Cypher. You are safe now." the XO says in a cool professional tone. "You were placed in a cryo-stasis pod. The blindness and physical weakness you are no doubt experiencing is a temporary side-effect of your cryogenic suspension. The effects should pass in time provided you do not overexert yourself."

Without turning around she adds quietly holding out her left hand. "(In Japanese) Kasumi, the serum." The girl hands the XO an unusual long syringe armed with an ampoule of some odd looking slimy looking green liquid. The doctor crosses her arms and addresses the figure whose hand weakly and blindly attempts to ward off the injection. "...n-no..." the figure adds weakly in a raspy but coherent Japanese. "please...don't...I'm...weak...hurts-" the vile looking green fluid in the ampoule discharges all at once into his bloodstream through the artery within his stasis weakened arm.

The figure falls back to the bed as a sharp look suffused with pain and agony bloom upon a deeply expressive handsome young face. A spasm courses through the boy's body as his back arcs and the gnashing of his gritted teeth are audible in the hanger. His whole body clenches in upon itself. He is desperately struggling not to scream, Isumi realizes with a start. He does not want to give his enemy the satisfaction of knowing how badly they hurt him.

Her grip on the gun nearly slips but she remembers her orders and duty as cruel as it was to her. She must believe in the necessity of this and have faith in Dr. Kouzuki. Steeling her resolve and determination, she brings her other hand up to steady her weapon's aim on the boy's heart.

If your death must come tonight, I promise to make it quick. You won't suffer for long. She swears to him silently.

His tightly closed eyes shed a few pain-soaked tears down his cheek and the fingers of both hands clench into a pair of white knuckles. Why is the XO doing to him? What sort of poison was in that ampoule? The reason for all of this had better be a damn good one. Nothing else would justify the use of a drug that inflicts that level of pain.

Several minutes pass with the boy panting there with the sweat pouring off his face and body. The simple thin white robe cinched at the waist and the blue lighting makes it seem like his skin glows like a stricken stage IV cancer patient. Physically speaking, he looks much weaker than before his injection. His formally tanned skin now has a sickly looking pallor it didn't earlier and his breath comes in ragged gasps and wheezes. Those strange glowing eyes that had shone so briefly like polished emeralds or stars giving off their own inner light now faded to the comparatively dull luster a normal human whose ancestors must have come from some North European country before it fell to the BETA.

Why was she called to be both a party and a witness to this child's agony? Isumi knew that the XO was often cruel and occasionally even ruthless but never once when she did not absolutely have to for the Greater Good of the world and humanity. This must be one of those times. This sort of pain was necessary and this boy simply had to endure it for that mysterious reason. Still it didn't make the sight of someone being tortured with the kind of drug that left the person alive but in agony any easier.

An empty rasp captured her attention.

"Do what you want with me but there is something I must know first. Is ...is my family alive? Are they trapped within these pods of yours?" The strange voice speaking fluent Japanese wavers slightly. "because I- I can't feel them at all. Is that because of some new batch of serum? or..."

The otherwise handsome face twists into a rictus of grief, pain, and vengeful rage. "What have you done with my family, human? Have you murdered my family!? Have you plundered their lives for blood and spare parts!?" He shouts at her.

Using a surprising amount of strength in his obviously stiff arm joints, the figure forces himself to a sitting position. The unfocused eyes flare like miniature green suns as his anguished howl pierces her ears and heart. "DID YOU KILL MY FAMILY?!"

The echoes of his tortured scream etch themselves deeply into her heart. An unnatural cold slices following in their wake through the stale air of the hanger like a knife. The sharp edge of a murderous aura all around the creature makes her arm shiver and the hair at the back of her neck stand on end. This creature wasn't human! No wonder the XO insisted she come armed. She looks pensively between Yuuko and this glowing eyed 'Cypher' character trying to decide if its time to get the XO out of here or shoot without the order to fire.

"Before you go jumping to any hasty conclusions, no your family isn't dead, spirit. We found you and three members of your 'family' and brought them to safety. They are right here safe and secure near your side. The only reason you can't reach them with your telepathic talents is due to the cryogenic suspension they are experiencing that curtails higher neurological brain functions to the bare minimum necessary to artificially sustain life." She adds in a soft whisper "You and yours are quite safe at the moment. Calm yourself."

The intensity of the chill hangs in the cold air like a thinly veiled promise that she is about to die. Her breath comes out in unnatural puffs of frozen water vapor in the stale underground hanger. "Then wake them as you did me. Don't give them any of that damned serum. You don't understand what it does to us."

"Perhaps latter. You are quite enough to handle for now. Injecting you with that serum was necessary since you would have either killed us or we you as a result of your confusion. If you don't want the others to suffer from the full dose, then you will hear out my proposal and keep them under control when I do bring them out of stasis." She replies quickly.

The creature falls silent as if considering something while the Wintry chill of Death hangs in heavy the stale air and constricts like a tightening vice around her heart. His unfocused eyes burn cold and bright into the XO.

"I have no reason to trust you, mortal; yet you have offered me little choice but to hear what you have to say. Be warned though if you are lying to me and my family does not lie safe and sound by my side then even if I fall here Heaven itself will tear your soul apart and consign the shattered pieces to a living hell that would make the Eternal Entropy of Void seem pleasant by comparison. It will extract the full worth of my brother and sisters souls from all responsible for torturing us and turning us to mana dust. Your soul will pay that price before it being utterly consumed by the Entropy of Void and its Legions. All ills done to us will be repaid in kind as it has since the birth of Time."

Dr. Kouzuki rolls her eyes and directs a satisfied grin with Isumi that goes unseen by the stasis blind creature on the cryobed. Her voice is clear and bright. "Got it. I already knew you would do whatever was necessary to protect or avenge your 'family'. I would hardly have woken you up if I only wanted to throw you away or simply put your brain in a jar for study. You are simply too interesting and valuable as a resource wasted that way. You will discover that I am not as stupidly cruel as the sort of Americans who torture and plundered you and your kin like BETA for the pleasure and selfish desires of their high ranking corporate and government officials."

The rage twisting his otherwise handsome face into something fey and vengeful then fades away like a wave upon a shore at low tide replaced with lines of weary resignation. What was that sense that made me feel as if I was about to die? The Wintry chill constricting the stale air ebbs to a muted silence that echoes something else. "Yet you use their methods to compel obedience? Yet you also seek to use us for your own ends? In either respect, you have shown yourself little different from them."

She boldly steps to the spirits left side patting him on the shoulder while Isumi shakes her head urgently at the XO. She's too close to him he could pull her on top of him using her body as a shield under the premise that the XO would at least one guard with her! The XO grabs his hand and gives it an almost affectionate squeeze her voice as soft as that given by a mother to a sick child to sooth his aches.

"I apologize for giving you the full dose, but if you are willing to give me a chance then you will spare your kin from suffering the same pain. I take no joy in your suffering. What was done was only to protect us from you acting prematurely before you knew the facts. Please listen to what I have to say for your family's sake."

"Fine. Tell me what more you want from us that your kind has not already taken from us already, human." He replies his tone cold.

"My name is Dr. Yuuko Kouzuki. You are deep within a U.N. base situated underground on the Japanese mainland. Rest assured, we do not belong to the faction of humans that tortured you or yours, spirit; but one directly opposed to them. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. As for what I want...well... at this particular moment I want you to answer a few questions for me." She pats his hand with her other as he lays there impassively. "Nothing too difficult. Afterward when you have recovered your eyesight and enough strength to move we will start waking your family up. Naturally, the truth is a lot more complex but without putting too fine a head on it - I want you and your family of spirits to help me restore humanity's hopes and dreams."

He blinks evidencing a confusion that Isumi understand all too well from her dealings with the XO. "I don't understand. What does that even mean? How are we supposed to do that? We aren't God or even demigods so how are we supposed to do something like that?" Wait a second...Why does she of all people keep referring to these creatures as a family of spirits? What would motivate the American's to loot these 'spirits' like BETA? What is there to take away from his family of 'spirits'? Aside from a pair of creepy glowing eyes, some strange talk about telepathic ability, and that whole Winter chill of death in the air thing, he never really stopped seeming like a frightened and confused but otherwise normal twenty year old kid to her.

The XO releases her grip on his hand and sharply indicates with a wave of her hand for Isumi to holster her weapon. This she does as she continues to watch the exchange between the two as impassively as her rapidly beating heart will let her. The XO speaks softly. "You will find out when the time is right, spirit." He waits for her to continue but she just allows the silence to linger. He won't be getting any more detailed an answer to his question than Isumi got to hers.

He lays there for a moment before his voice takes on a surprisingly clear and melodic voice that almost sings in a perfectly fluent and flowing command of the Japanese language. Looks like he's regaining his strength much more quickly now even though his unhealthy looking pallor remains. "All right. I will ask again latter. Ask me your questions, human. I will answer them if I can."

"Do you want to save humanity's hopes and dreams?" She asks impassively.

At this, the 'spirit' gives her a sardonic laugh. "Is that your first question? Why are you asking a 'Fallen Angel' candidate reborn into your dying world if he wants to save the people who tortured, plundered, and betrayed us? Aren't we spirits simply another weapon or tool in your arsenal to ward you from your untimely end? Isn't that why went through the trouble of breaking us out of our private form of Hell where we were imprisoned for the high crime of being born with the sort of power your kind craves so much? Of course, it is. Why else bear us encased in our frozen tombs across a dead ocean to this charming island nation if not to fight and die on the front lines of a war you can't win with your own strength?"

He stretches and clenching his hands obviously trying to regain feeling and full range of motion in his arms even as he continues talking now in a rich but somber tenor. "So allow me to answer your question with one of my own. Why do you ask a weapon if it wants to save something? You don't. All we have ever been taught by your kind's 'tender mercies' is that for all the justifications you mundanes give to excuse your crimes we spirits are not deserving of any human respect, dignity, or worth. We are simply destined to be used as tools directed by those who don't understand or value us to achieve their selfish ends. You will use us as others have before you only so long as we are useful and discard us or imprison us in frozen cages the moment we outlive our usefulness or fail to live up to your Greed fed expectations. Of course, even that assumes we are not snapped apart in the same deadly dance your kind is in the process of losing against the vast hordes of Cthulu style monsters knocking down Humanity's door. That is at least part of what you meant by 'restoring humanity's hopes and dreams', isn't it? You want us to fight your battles and die in your place?"

The XO's face lights into a strange little smile as her slender fingers trace warding lines in the air before the blond-haired twenty year old sitting there. "Aah! Aah! Aah! Why are you turning into such a naughty boy. I can tell your eye-sight is starting to return. I also know that whatever you are planning isn't going to work. That pitiful amount of energy force of yours isn't going to do much of anything beyond extinguish your lifeforce altogether. That would be a waste. We are so close to reaching a mutually beneficial understanding here. There is no need to do something stupid and throw yourself away. Your family needs you now more than ever if you are to make sure that they are not misused." She crosses her arms under her amble chest. "Be sensible."

He turns his head to gives her a pained look. "What are you talking about, doctor? What energy is that?"

"Fine, lay there and play dumb. Kasumi? Tell us what you have just told me." The girl steps forward staring at the human 'spirit' without a trace of expression. "He playing for time. He is trying to manipulate you into revealing your plans for his family while gathering up his - his lifeforce? He wants to disable us and wake up his kin before we inject them with more serum so that they can escape to safety and escape this-"

The figure lets out an exasperated breath that causes Kasumi to fall silent. The spirit winces in obvious discomfort as he lifts himself to a sitting position and drags his legs over the edge of the cryobed and looks beyond the XO giving Kasumi a strangely gentle smile on his rather animated face. "You have the talent too, little sister? Before I allow my kin and I to be used as hammers to help this human restore 'humanity's hopes and dreams', I want you to answer a question for me first. How has humanity repaid you and your brothers and sisters for the gift of your ability? What sort of life did the greed fed desperation of these human creatures grant your family? Are any of your kin still alive?"

Kasumi gasps and she clasps her hands together in front of her not willing or able to answer him. I never knew Kasumi had brothers or sisters; but come to think of it I never even thought of her as telepathic. It sounds as fanciful as a family of earthbound spirits with supernatural powers. However bright and levelheaded this kid has shown himself to be, he seems a far cry from the superhero type that litters those stupid war propaganda films shown to the civvies that just happen to save the day dramatically at the last second. Spirits...heh. Stupid kid fantasies. You are going to need a lot more than a pair of glowing eyes and the ability to adjust the thermostat in some moldy old hanger down a few degrees to impress me, boy.

He listens intently but says nothing looking with stasis blinded eyes in her general direction.

"That's enough, Mr. Cypher. You will direct your queries to me or not at all." The XO's cold eyes and voice could lower the temperature by themselves. I for one wouldn't want to be on the other end of that stare.

The spirit shrugs rubbing his legs as if to restore blood flow. "As I thought. I wish I could say I am surprised but you'll forgive me if I refrain from lying to you. All right, Dr. Kouzuki - you have my attention such as it is."

"I want you to open a Gate to another dimension for me. Can you do that for me?" She asks with the same tone someone else might use when asking someone to fetch something from the PX. A Gate to another what?

He laughs seemingly amused. "Hey! I just got out of prison! Plus, I don't know if you realize this but you gave me the full dosage so I am not going to be opening any portals for a while. Just so you are aware, a full dose of serum degrades my essence to the thinnest of margins required to keep my spirit alive. Finding that dose cost 'humanity's hopes and dreams' the 'use' of another spirit's existence. Humanity's hopes and dreams are expensive and not worth the price if I had to lose a brother for it! He crumbled into mana dust! And for what did he die?! All just to grant 'humanity' a means of grinding us into more reliable weapons. The full dose was only ever given as a punishment! Yet did they even use us to save others of their kind on this rock? No. They simply took us from our beds in the middle of the night and locked us away into these frozen little prisons as a hedge against their end! It seems even the lifeforce and mana of Angel spirits isn't enough to satisfy the greed of our human jailers!"

Anger and a sort of bleak resentment are so painfully etched on his remarkably expressive face unfocused against all of humankind. For this spirit, his emotions always seem to boil to the surface with the speed and force of a tsunami after an earthquake offshore. Maybe he never learned how to control his emotions or maybe he's had enough to handle protecting this odd family of his that he doesn't even try. I would have thought he would have been a little more grateful to be rescued from his frozen jail but he seems to view humans as cut from the same collective cloth. He also doesn't seem to think of this as anything other than trading one hellish prison for another with a wardrobe change of the Warden, Prison, and Guards treading upon his family with our collective boot-heels.

At that realization, a small surge of genuine sympathy for this strange creature caged and tortured awakens and stirs inside her. He is trapped in a hell he can't escape but he can't do anything that might jeopardize his family. What sort of life have these creatures known?

Imagining that tiny group of children taken from their families off to a prison where they were used like laboratory rats bred for bizarre medical experiments along with Heaven knows what else day in and day out for what...years? a decade? all their lives? Was Kasumi's life as horrific and grim as theirs? Did humanity find itself desperate enough to torture children whose only crime was being born with some strange ability just to add a few more seconds to the Doomsday clock? Would things really have been different if humanity's desperation and need for survival wasn't as great as now if Kasumi and this spirits kind had come to them then? Would these children had known such horrors if there were no BETA around? A world of dead children would have lived too but would that justify the enslavement and torture of these spirits? There was no purpose she could think of or at least she couldn't find the answer. She only has the level of control over her actions that her orders allowed her and if she was ordered to kill this boy even though it would have broken her heart to kill such a man in cold blood she would have obeyed the order. Does that make her as evil as the act itself? Was there any difference between her and the ones who torture and killed children just to gain power over the rest for their own selfish desires? Her body feels incredibly heavy to her as something long suppressed reminds her it still made her feel horrible.

Little wonder that the only souls that he loves and trusts were also abused by the same people who tortured and abused him. It probably eats away at all of them. After enduring that sort of bare existence for God knows how long, he wants to safeguard the ones he loves and trusts as family. His family was the only ones who didn't drown him in that sick gnawing sort of empty pain she knew well. Kasumi must have known it too since she can't seem to look up at him anymore and hides behind the XO like a daughter grabbing her mother's skirt for comfort.

Isumi remains lost in her thoughts while maintaining a sort of watchful guard automatic enough it freed her mind to concentrate on other things. Still she lost the thread of conversation between the two and picks it up with the spirit talking about something very strange less than a minute later.

"Of course, you are assuming they aren't being chomped and NOM-ed to death by some other vision of Void's growing Legions bound to this dimensional thread of existence. I honestly don't know or particularly care where those two mundanes are now, human. All I cared about was getting Vicky away from them. Did you not hear me when I said they forced me to open a Gate to a world without BETA while threatening to inject her with a lethal concentration of that poison they used to mistakenly kill my brother. I told them that the portal could only handle two if they jumped through it and that it was useless to open another one. At the moment they turned their attention on each other I tore open a dimensional rift that consumed their bodies and pull that syringe away from Vicky's neck while Garrett pulled her back from the rift. If I had to guess those two found themselves on the surface in the middle of some random stretch of the Nevadan Desert without much food or water, found themselves partly materialized inside some rock or sandstone, or hilt deep in the middle of another secret military installation without the proper authorization and access codes. You can imagine what their Fate would be if they tried that here. For threatening Vicky's life, their Fate is unimportant and if they did die horribly it was the least those monsters deserved."

She shrugs. "I don't care much about their Fate in particular except from the standpoint of scientific curiosity. What I most want to know right now is did they survive after they reaching the other side of that portal and where they ended up. Is there some sort of dimensional model or lattice of worlds that could be mapped and catalogued? If the portal is bidirectional while open, then could someone enter this reality through a portal opened on this side? I also want to know if this portal has the potential to be stabilized in some way once you have done the heavy lifting of opening it in the first place or if there is some sort of system or pattern that would allow those who stepped through with you to return to this reality. How do you create and sustain this wormhole shaped portals that bridge the gaps between parallel worlds. Are those gaps measured in something that can be quantified such as time or distance through some sort of dimensional space or some form of quantum energy? I mean dimensions could have the equivalent of coordinate points along some meaningful axis that links our relative position along some sort of path or line toward the chosen destination. If we understood how this energy you manifest links this together then perhaps we could foster alliances between parallel worlds that possess greater levels of technology capable of aiding us or evacuate the human species to a parallel world where the possibility that no BETA exists and offer the potential of a new life in a verdant world.

"Your counterparts asked many of the same things when they weren't taking our blood for their masters and seeking a means of harvesting the form of energy that defines our existence. When we could not provide them answers they sought alternative means of harvesting us bit by bit in hopes of understanding something beyond their ability to comprehend let alone control. I know they sought to find the answers to your questions you posed on their own terms. I don't think they were very successful else they would have no further need to keep us alive and you would have seen clear evidence of that energy in this world or the faction that tormented us would have taken us with them instead of hiding us away wherever you found us. Is that not sufficient proof that they failed and gave up else why would we even remain alive for you to find? I do not believe given what I know that they succeeded or you and I would not be having this conversation."

The XO purses her lips cupping her chin as she considers the problem. "It depends on how much they really understood about how your energy is generated in the first place. They would also need some sort of storage device like a battery capable of storing your essence and a means of converting that energy into the specific application they wanted it directed toward. Given the unique nature of your ability, they would have to discover how your powers work. I think you are probably right but instead of simply continuing to waste more resources trying to uncover something requiring at least several more decades of studying the way your mind and body works together, they put you on ice until they could understand your physiology and mental processes. The fact that your brother crumbled to dust moments after he died from the fatal overdose of serum means they wouldn't simply kill you in hopes of finding the answer by dissecting your brain or body out of the justifiable fear they would simply lose you too. Putting you in a catatonic state would not work since as we have no effective non-invasive technique available to us that would allow us to truly understand how your brain and body physiology works to generate and directs this mana of yours into the form required before releasing it into the world. I would guess that since you are beings from an alternative dimension at the very least then the nature of your powers is at least partially drawn from another source outside our dimensional space-time. They also only had the four of you to play with understanding this ability so that fact alone would give them pause before chancing the loss of another precious spirit to some ignorant ham-handed means of probing into the answers to those questions. They made the only rational choice to suspend their investigations for the present until they found or at least theorized a means of answering those questions using the data they collected from the you without risking the loss of any more irreplaceable assets."

"Your words have the ring of truth about them, doctor. I can see that it does conform to their way of thinking." He says quietly turning to face his family beside him. "Still I sometimes wonder if humans are all as cold-hearted and pragmatic as this or if the circle of humans I travel within is too small." He bends over rubbing his face before turning those faintly glowing embers of emerald hued flame on the XO.

"The point behind all of this is that for some reason I can't cast my consciousness from this part of the thread into another to know what lies in wait on the other side. It takes a great amount of energy to open a portal even for a few seconds and that serum you injected us with in almost any amount makes the effort to keep it create and sustain a portal for even that long impossible." He turns a hard glare at the XO. "That goes for all of us and not just me so don't bother trying to force my family to open a Gate for you after tearing our essence away. You are far more likely to hold the dimensional threads binding Creation in the palm of your hand if you seek your answers with an open mind rather than with a mailed fist."

The XO nods as if in complete understanding and agreement. She knows a lot more about this than I do even before he said anything. No shocker there. As that 'mailed fist' Isumi felt rather happy to be useless here but the call of her bunk was sounding more and more appealing by the minute.

"I understand. Please forgive us for the horrible things humanity has done to you and yours. We will work hard to rebuild your trust in the hopes you will discover that we are not cut from the same cloth as those humans whose crimes you and yours have endured all your lives in our world." The XO looks down at the ground and gives the spirit a deep bow. "For my part, I regret not learning of your family's existence sooner and subjecting you to some of the same treatment you endured in America. I would have taken steps to pull you and your family from that sort of existence a long time ago. Perhaps if I had, your brother would still be alive. If it makes you feel any better, I won't give you that concentration of serum again. In return all I ask is for you to not betray the trust I now place in you, spirit."

He watches her warily. "Thank you for those kind words but actions would serve you better in fostering trust between us. I think my family has slept long enough in these human made tombs. It is time to wake them up. Please do not inject them with any serum. That is a sign that you do not trust us despite your pretty words."

He pulls himself off the bed to gingerly stand before her. "I am willing to convince my family to give you and yours a chance to prove yourselves different from our former jailers. You will have to work extremely hard to convince us that you are not simply another tyrant out to gorge yourself on our blood. Grant us a measure of liberty such as we have never had over our own lives. Treat us with the same compassion, dignity, and respect you ask of each of us and it will be given to you in kind. Do not ever again rely on that serum to control or manipulate us. Do not seek to strip the essence of what we are and twist it for your own purposes. We are your partners in this struggle not your slaves. Do not force us to take any action without our express mutual consent. Any use of coercion against any one of us will void our agreement with you and we will take any action necessary to escape this world forever. You come to me first if you need something that requires the use of our abilities until you have regained our faith in humanity. We also ask you to let us walk among you as freely and unhindered as the other humans here." He raises a hand to forestall her objection to his last point. "Please understand that we have no interest in your secrets unless they directly impact our safety and well-being in this world."

"Can you do something about those glowing eyes of yours? Walking around glowing like that will make concealing your presence impossible and there is at least one faction who knows who and what you are enough that they may become motivated to reclaim you for themselves."

Isumi blinks as even the tiny green embers fade to be replaced with bright but normal looking green eyes. He looked completely...human. "Is this adequate? In that respect, we will do what we can to avoid revealing the nature of our talents to the other mundanes. It will be an adjustment for us but we will make it work if that is the price for our continued freedom."

Silence descends for several awkward moments as the finely tuned instrument of Dr. Kouzuki's mind considers the request from every angle before ultimately nodding.

"Alright. Fine. If fair and humane treatment is enough to secure your willing cooperation then you will have it. However, I cannot allow you to have free reign over the entire base particularly most of the restricted lower levels but I will see about giving all of you passes to all the surface levels as well as the subfloor leading to my office. I'm sorry but only the Base Commander, myself, certain senior research teams that absolutely must have that type of clearance to do their work, and our immediate superiors have that level of unrestricted access here. Giving you and yours that level of access would be like shooting a flare directly into the face of every intelligence, corporate, and government agency throughout the world with a vested interest in this place that you and your family are living here. Such a revelation would likely not be in the best interests of preserving your family's safety. As long as they don't know you are gone, they won't come looking to take you back. I didn't go through all the effort of smuggling you out of that warehouse without tripping any of the multiple redundant layers of alarm bells only to see all that effort wasted by granting you unrestricted access to this base."

The spirit nods. "I understand. Access to just the surface levels and the subfloor to your office is more than generous enough for me and mine. On behalf of my family, allow me to thank you for this opportunity to turn the page on the atrocities of the past in the hopes of building a better future for us all. So what happens now?"

"Kasumi will awaken your family members so you may make arrangements to ensure they understand what is expected of them as part of our shared interest. I have prepared cover identities to replace the ones you were born with but I'm having to draft out most of the paperwork for you myself to prevent security leaks, so it may take until tomorrow. In the meantime, Kasumi will show you each to your quarters for the time being. By tomorrow morning, we will give you fresh clothing, chance to shower and refresh yourselves."

The spirit bows respectfully in thanks before directing his full attention for the first time to Isumi. Watching him carefully, she evaluates him with a practiced eye. His frame is lean and sinewy. While he was not exactly what she would call military grade in his musculature there was no trace of excess fat around his mid-section and real definition in the arms, chest, and leg muscles that showed a high level of dedication to swimming, weight-training, and cardio-vascular exercise. His body's movements flow with a natural grace as silent and swift as a wolf stalking its prey. A wolf...devoted to its pack, fiercely territorial, sharp and incisive...a consummate hunter...yes, Wolf is a good nickname for this spirit.

"Forgive me, but we haven't formerly been introduced yet. May I have the honor of your name, Captain?"

She looks up his 176 cm long frame locking on to his bright green eyes. "My name is Captain Isumi Michiru. It is an honor to make your acquaintance." She replies evenly.

He begins to offer her the same deep flowing bow he gave the XO but stops with almost as much grace the moment she offers him her hand for a handshake. His face brightens into a dazzling smile clasps her hand with a credible reserve of strength in his grip. She had been curious to see how much he was able to mask his earlier pain and overcome his drug and cryostasis induced debility.

"Christopher Cypher. I am happy to make your acquaintance but ecstatic that you didn't shoot me with that gun of yours. A body made like mine doesn't react all that well to bullets." The offbeat almost cavalier way he phrased that brings a smile to her face.

"Then lets hope neither of us have a reason to look at each other over the edge of a gun barrel ever again." She says lightly.

He boldly takes her other hand that mere minutes earlier held the pistol that threatened his life. Holding both of her hands in a strong but gentle grip, she finds herself drawn by some strange almost fey instinct to the penetrating green eyes reaching down into her soul. "Hope springs Eternal, yet if my last sight in this life is to fall victim to the warm chestnut scented eyes of my beautiful assassin, then I will count it among one of the loveliest sights ever seen in this life or the next."

A very dangerous man indeed...


	2. Chapter 2

The Slider looks down upon the faces of the only family he has known as they lay frozen in time as this...poison does its work. The parasitic flames of entropy seeping into this plane of existence through fissure sized cracks into this reality greedily licks around the outer edges of his soul seeking entry. With the complex weave of resonant mana that among so much else not only constitutes the source of energy that both limits and elevates his existence but also functions like an immune system against the flame of Void steadily corroding this entire reality drained away by this insidious poison lingering in his blood, the spirit knows from very bitter past experience how much agony he has yet to endure. What little excess mana remains to him is spread thin in an increasingly desperate struggle to neutralize the poison infecting his body, maintain its mana dependent life functions, and most importantly prevent the conceptual integrity and harmonic resonance of the spirit's soul from disintegrating into mana dust.

With the long stasis leaving him physically, emotionally, and mentally drained and the adrenaline running through him all but spent; Christopher finds himself returning to sit on the side of his cryobed his labored breathing sounding loud in his ears.

Isumi, Yuuko, and Kasumi scrutinize him for several moments evincing varying degrees of genuine sympathy, cool interest, or vacant curiosity respectively as he sits there gripping the edge of the cryobed fighting a battle for survival against a force none of them can see.

"Kasumi, please start awakening the other Sliders." The doctor orders Kasumi. Kasumi moves to the small pads and with the pitter patter of tiny feet starts punching in the activation codes for the cryo-pods holding the other spirits in stasis. "You can sleep here if you want, Mr. Cypher."

The Slider shakes his head. "No thank you, doctor. I must remain awake long enough for them to understand all that has happened and ensure their safety and well-being..." He trails off almost listlessly with a labored yawn as his eyes grow heavy. "I can not sleep here. My family will know what I will need to survive the effects of your poison even if you do not. Listen to what they have to say for now. I must conserve my remaining energy until my family is awake."

The doctor studies him with a speculative air. "You aren't planning something foolish, are you?" Ignoring her, the Slider folding his legs on the bed resting his arms upon them falls rapidly into a deep meditative silence. The labored sounds of breathing in the hanger ease and the three mortals are left essentially to themselves.

"XO, can you explain what happened here? What is he? Is he really what he claims he is? How can a 'spirit' exist in the real world?" Isumi not seeing anything threatening in the Slider's actions turns her attention away from him to her commanding officer.

The doctor smiles at the Slider. "What he is a mystery wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in an enigma. Superficially he's human but within that matrix of flesh, and blood, and bone is something else that defies our understanding about the nature of reality. He claims to be someone that lived in a separate reality, died at the tender age of 17 winters but was reborn as a child formed of something else far from his original reality. That would certainly fit the typical definition of a spirit or Angel but none of his claims are verifiable."

"What is verifiable is that Christopher Cypher in a manner very similar to the other 'spirits' in this hanger was born in this world approximately 25 years ago to an American mother and father who were told shortly thereafter that their baby son had died as a result of complications arising from a rare genetic defect in his heart. At least the official story."

"And unofficially?" Isumi prompts. "Unofficially, he like his brother and sisters was found with features that marked him shortly after being placed in that the tear in his heart valve was knitting together by itself. The doctor and his staff noted that he exhibited certain abnormalities not usually seen in human infants."

"The glowing eyes?" Isumi guesses watching Kasumi enter the final activation code into the last pod.

"Among other things. An in-depth analysis of his blood and tissue samples yielded the conclusion that his body exhibits a slow acting but powerful regenerative aspect that permeates every cell throughout his entire body. All traces of damage all the way down to his genetic code started shortly after birth that restore him to the absolute picture of good health. Unfortunately for him, his distinctiveness and regenerative ability drew the immediate attention of a certain faction within their government who claimed him for themselves along with in similar fashion four others who were all born within a 18 month span of time following him. All of them showing similar but not exactly the same exhibited traits."

"So they took him and the others from their parents shortly after they were born and allowed their parent's to think they all died as a result of some genetic defect all so they could run a lot of crazy medical and scientific experiments on them? That's sick!" Isumi shouts as bile rises in the back of her throat.

"Among other things, yes. Unfortunately, I don't have a complete treatise of all the work the researchers did on him or his siblings over their lifetime in captivity but what my sources have uncovered is interesting. In addition to a battery of experiments tracking and measuring their ability to cope and regenerate from damage resulting from intense and prolonged stress, heat, cold, wild rapid swings in pressure, along with some other tests in the same lines, they found all of them exhibit both telekinetic and telepathic ability far above the previously thought upper limit of human PSI potential."

The doctor pauses to clear her throat. "In order to cultivate these talents more widely, it seems that one of the principle objectives of their project was to find a way of isolating the vectors that produced these children in the first place and find a means of replicating these traits among the general population. Attempts to artificially inseminate them proved fruitless since despite having perfectly healthy and functional reproductive organs as indicated in several medical reports concluded that all of these Sliders are completely sterile. As a result, various plans to utilize certain drugs to induce them to procreate with one another in addition to utilizing the collected sperm and egg samples extracted from them while they were sedated were abandoned shortly after this discovery."

The doctor looks aside with a wistful smile. "They did however pave the way for others to be born with somewhat similar albeit a bit more subdued PSI potential by affording us a complete picture of exactly what genetic markers and other characteristics are required expression in humans to manifest the latent telepathic gene sequence in humanity." The doctor pats Kasumi paternally on the head who had finished with her task and returned silently to her side. "At least in that respect the project succeeded in one of its aims even if it didn't do so as directly or completely as it wanted. Its interesting to note that what was done indirectly was not strictly isolated to a handful inside the multinational military industrial power structure that dominate the activities of this particular highly secretive clandestine multinational group."

"You mean...Kasumi?" Isumi jaw drops and her eyes open wide. Kasumi was always strange and quiet girl but Isumi had no idea that behind that mask lay a genetically engineered Telepath bred as a result of some twisted mad science experiments on 'spirit' children.

The doctor pats Kasumi on the back of her head. "What I've told you and everything you've heard and seen here tonight is something only a very select and powerful few left in the world know anything about. Even what little I've told you is enough to for some very dangerous people to want to make you disappear. If there wasn't a good reason for you to know this, I wouldn't burden you with this but...I must remind you for your own safety not to speak of it or make any record of any kind concerning any detail disclosed here tonight."

Isumi snaps to attention saluting. "Of course, Dr. Kouzuki. I will keep-"

The rest of her words are cut off as three ugly sounding pneumatic hisses occur one after another and the seals on the remaining Sliders is broken. This snaps the Slider out of his meditative trance and he climbs to his feet putting himself between the Sliders and the mortals holding a warding hand up. The other Sliders start gasping and coughing violently.

"Wha-t's *cough* *cough* is-...going on?" The blond woman wheezes.

"Garrett, Viktoria, Lilly. Thank Heaven!" The relief in his voice is palpable.

"I'm here. You're all safe. Don't try to move around yet. You are suffering cryo-stasis poisoning. Side-effects include: shortness of breath, temporary nausea, dizziness, sore throat, and moderate physical/mental fatigue or weakness. Right off the label. Good News, the blindness and nausea, dizziness, sore throat and shortness of breath wear off more or less in about five to ten minutes. Bad news the moderate physical and mental fatigue you are going to have to sleep that off just don't do it right now. You are going to want to hear this. Force feed a full dose of poison but otherwise alive for the moment. You are not going to be poisoned. The corprats apparently got tired of torturing and stashed us somewhere in a few cryopods. A scientist claims to have rescued us from our captors by spiriting us away from the land of the slave and the home of the depraved in a drama no doubt brimming with excitement and adventure. She has brought us to her charming isle and the deep dusty underground grime and rust of just another military base - but don't worry this one is good and wholesome serving as the front lines against the Apocalypse so at least they want to keep things out than us in. She has claimed us all as spoils of her daring do on our behalf and in return wants us to join her crusade to save humanity's hopes and dreams. Oh and even though she force-fed me a cup of parasites just to have a chat she promised she was different and wouldn't dream of using that poison ever again or think of combining it like neuro-stun and carcerands or some combination even worse to enslave us all over again with the power of Chemistry. She promised us new lives, new hopes, and new dreams even taking time out of her busy schedule to meet us. We get to live and mingle among the natives so long as we help her drive the BETA spawn back into the Void that birthed them. After that we get to complete our Harrowing and go home to Celestia big damn heroes."

"Is that all?*cough*" Garrett laughs sardonically amid his coughing fit. "G-good to be...needed. *cough* *cough*" He lays back his head spinning dazed dark grey eyes staring into the ceiling. Lilly and Victoria lay there silent aside from their struggle against their own coughing spells.

The Slider walks over to edge of sisters' cryobeds while the mortals quiet watching from a discrete distance. "Did you guys hear that? We are going to be alright. Safe, footloose, and fancy free." He affectionately squeezes their shoulders. "We are free." Lilly looks at him her bright violet eyes flashing in barely contained annoyance whispering. "(Celestial) We 'heard' a lot more than that, brother. What are you doing? We need to get out of here!"

Whispering back under his breath his back to the mortals and occupying his thoughts singing odd nursery rhymes. "(Celestial) Shh! Don't worry, Lil. I've got a few contingencies planned just in case things go south but we got to keep our heads and work with these mortals until we get the lay of the land and find the edges of our new cage. I've got a decent handle on this. Trust me. We aren't in any immediate danger yet. She seems to need us a lot more than we need her. For now, we just need to play it cool and close to the vest with the cards we've been dealt and I promise you we'll find a way to handle this. Just keep your wards up and don't let the kid in the room hear what you are thinking, ok?" Lilly swallows a lump in her throat and forces a smile. "Only if you promise not to reduce your mind turn to mush singing children's nursery rhymes to a little girl up well past her bedtime - one idiot brother almost more than enough to handle already." Garrett turns supporting his head on his arms incredulously at Lilly. "(Celestial) You do realize I am laying right next to you." Victoria laughs wincing a bit in pain. "Ah! ow! I have missed you guys."

"I don't understand." Some distance away, Kasumi says to no-one in particular. "Eh? What's with that sour expression?" The doctor kneels to her eye level as Kasumi sends her concern to the doctor who grins over her shoulder at the Sliders. "Oh! Slider speak."

The leader turns around and grins. "Just family business, doc. Nothing to worry about. We are all going to be working closely together from now on aren't we? We have plenty of time to get to know each other better. So did you want meet my family of 'divine children' or do you want to siphon our mana off and keep us in chains? Fair warning, not to belabor the point but no-one is going to like what happens if you go with the latter option, ok?"

"Don't be stupid." The doctor looks miffed. "We've wasted enough time over this. Get on with it. We don't have all night to stare at each other."

He grins. "Ok! So on with the introductions! The nice scientist lady that saved us all from our frozen tombs and poisoned me is Dr. Yuuko Kouzuki. She doesn't want us rummaging around in her brain so she asked me to post a sign to all of you that her mind is off limits. Rather closely at her side is a strange girl with perhaps a bit too much fondness for bunny rabbits. Honestly she acts more like the good doctor's adoptive daughter than an underling. A good sign considering we all share a somewhat complicated childhood and strange powers. Anyway, looking at her I would guess she's decent enough at the telepathy biz to pick up surface thoughts and emotions and maybe enough to detect a telepathic deep scan or two. More importantly, she is accompanied by a gorgeous young mortal woman with warm chestnut flavored eyes set like diamonds that are accented perfectly by the long flowing ringlet locks spun of cinnamon scented with pine cascading down an long exquisitely molded and sensuously tapered neck as if meant to draw the eye down to her chest where reigning in stately repose lay two perfectly shaped -"

Isumi her jaw falls open and she covers . "If you finish that sentence, I can and will hurt you."

He gives her an elegant courtly bow. "Lady, forgive me but the fire of your touch would ignite even the pain attending your tender ministrations into transports of pleasure not seen in this world since-."

Garrett sitting on the edge of the bed laughs his sharp grey eyes focused on the pair. "(Celestial) Laying it on a bit thick, aren't we? Do you have a death wish now or is this simply some strange side-effect of your most recent poisoning? Just asking." At Christopher's narrowing eyes. "You do know if anything purely accidental happens to you the rest of us get an instant promotion and I become the leader of this little outing to the outer edges of the Maw. Think about that." To her, "(Japanese) Forgive him Captain...?" She turns to Garrett extending her hand "Captain Isumi Michiru."

He lightly cups her fingers and kisses her hand. "Charmed. My brother is usually a very dependable sort of person most of the time but I've found over the long years of our association that he sometimes gets a little excitable around a certain type of woman." She smiles "What type is that?" Garrett returns her smile "The intensely beautiful kind." Giving into the strangeness of the evening, she giggles. "My name is Garrett and this is our sister in spirit, Lilly" he indicates the Asian woman with dark hair who now standing with Viktoria bows politely, "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain. Please forgive my brother's appalling lack of self control and decorum. They are both idiots." Lilly casts a sideways glare at the two who shrug and smile or simply wink. "Argh! To be honest, I sometimes find myself ashamed to even be affliated with this group. We are honored to accept your gracious hospitality." Lilly follows up with a stately bow. The longer this goes on the more the Captain more and more like a dignitary on a some diplomatic mission. It was a novel and electric sensation being the center of their attention outside a military setting. Either she was an unseen ornament or simply the officer in command.

Yet, its strange how the Sliders seem to be pointedly ignoring the now obviously annoyed XO and impassively observing Kasumi. Garrett distracts her by moving down the line. "This is Viktoria, but we can't help calling her Vicky; probably because we are all so incredibly lazy when it comes to names. You see it distracts us from the Music of the Spheres." Isumi cocks her head at that. Music of the Spheres? Before she has a chance to ask however the blonde pale Russian woman steps up with an enthusiastic grin, boldly takes, and shakes her hand pumping it in a deceptively powerful grip. "Hi! My name is Viktoria. I had a surname but lost it a long time ago." She looks crestfallen for a second before the smile pops back onto her face. "You can call me Vicky! Hey, so this place is really big, huh? Do you happen to know if you have any other spirits or Angels or people like us around here?" She grins. "No, I'm pretty sure you are the first real spirits I've ever met. Uhm...Dr. Kouzuki would you like to take it from here?" Center of attention or not; it didn't do to deliberately provoke the XO under the best of circumstances.

The XO steps up with Kasumi in tow and the three of them face the four spirits. The lightheartedness drains from the air replaced by four wary faces. Grey, Green, Blue, and Violet eyes attached to humans...so strange. "Thank you Isumi. Well Sliders I have a few questions for you. The first are those eyes. Why do they glow and for what reason are they in such odd colors."

The leader addresses her question. "You will find doctor that glowing eyes aren't an unusual quality in Celestial spirits. The nature of the mana in our blood and the physical manifestation of our souls existence in your reality will often show up in our features in more ways than glowing eyes. For those spirits who both merit and choose to join our Order, the mana that makes up our essence in Heaven shifts to what signifys our place within our Celestial Order. The colors themselves were chosen to signify a natural affinity for a particular aspect of Creation. My eyes," he pulls his eye lid down so the mortals can watch the bright green orb flash briefly like glowing emerald; "are green. It signifies my affinity to harness and shape mana into Primal forces commonly found throughout most of the natural world. My namesake was chosen by the appellation "Christbearer" after the patron saint who bore Christ across the river and in doing so briefly lifted the weight of the world and all its pains and ills as he crossed that allegorical river of Life. In doing this he lifted the burdens from Christ for a moment by taking those burdens onto himself. He remains the patron saint of soldiers, sailors, wayfarers on long journeys, and wanderers. I earned my namesake from my Order as a result of my strong desire to protect and safeguard the hearts, lives, and souls of the innocent from forces that would drown them in a chalice of blood and tears. I have the honor of being this group's Captain on our Harrowing and a Knight in the Celestial Order of Dimensional Sliders." He gives a formal but stiff bow his eyes never once leaving hers.

Garrett steps forward "My eyes also have a metaphysical significance but all you really need to know is that my 'affinity' falls within the more mental aspects of mana. I guess this makes me the scholar of our little band. Joy. My affinity allows me to shape mana into the more reflective parts of the Human mind like illusions, dreams, knowledge, wisdom, and simple things like common sense the last of which is sadly in short supply as far as I can tell from my time here. I also have as a result of my aspect decidedly more control, power, and finesse with the array of forces linked to our telepathy and telekinetic talents. My brother, sisters, and I are members of a special group of Celestial spirits loosely translated in one of your languages as the Illethari Aeterna but Celestial Order of Dimensional Sliders works just as well. Our particular Group was sent to this world on a Harrowing. Now for us a Harrowing without going into too much detail is a sort of final graduation test that signals our Ascendance to full members of our Celestial Order. It is also one of the hardest things any Slider has to go through. To put it in terms you might be familiar with its similar to graduating from a University at a Master's level assuming you are Mastering the Art of putting your soul on the line for a bunch of whiny ungrateful humans who feel especially entitled to take something as rare and precious as their only hope for Salvation, defecate all over it, and hurl it at one another like a warring band of feral rapid monkeys...figuratively speaking of course." He bows in apology.

"So what does your Harrowing mean for us? What were you sent here to do?"

Garrett smirks. "Oh, I don't know. It has something to do with saving the future of humanity and reversing the end of the world but to be honest I wasn't really paying that much attention to the details at the time. Ask our glorious leader."

"Alright." She turns to leader expectantly. "This is one of the things you aren't ready to know yet. Suffice it to say we aren't here to cause harm against the humans who have not aligned themselves with the Void in this world. As for explaining what that means exactly, doctor; suffice to say that every life is weighed upon its own scale and that is weighed within a much larger balance. Those who have lost too much of their compassion, their empathy, their humanity shown as a result of their excesses in feeling or in action have lost their souls to Void. They will take on an aspect of the Vice that rules them and the aspect of Void that embodies that vice."

"A lot of symbolism and metaphysical reasoning in what you say." She turns to the two female Sliders "We've heard from the men, what about you? Is there something equally symbolic underpinning your existence and powers as well?" Lilly and Viktoria share a wary look.

"I am Viktoria, ma'am. The blue in my eyes symbolizes my affinity for cycles of renewal and rebirth not only those found in nature but in the heart as well. I have the ability to rekindle hope, innocence, joy, and a sense of optimism and faith in those who have endured great hardship and sorrow. I can bring back life to those who walk through life like zombies...uh, just not you know those walking dead that actually are zombies. Those things I leave to my brothers and sister to toast. In that situation I just stay back, buff and heal them of physical damage and for unVoid tainted worlds I renew their mana. I'm the healer in the group! Although since we are very close to Void I can't restore mana directly in this world so all these techniques I know in my head are completely worthless and its really frustrating since you poisoned my brother and weakened him enough to put his existence in danger for absolutely no reason at all."

"Argh! *Sigh* Fine. All right. I admit it was a mistake to poison your brother before taking an accounting of all the facts but seriously Angels and spirits are the stuff of Myth and Legend in my world. You could all have created this elaborate fantasy world for yourselves about being Angels around yourselves just to cope with the problems you were dealing with growing up. Like a lonely person might create an imaginary friend or someone suffering from dehydration and heatstroke under a scorching desert sun might hallucinate about an oasis off in the distance. In your case, I suspected once I discovered some information about the secret world you crafted around yourselves that it was simply along lines similar to that but since the four of you have powers shared by none other than yourselves you invented this Angel spirit nonsense as a coping mechanism to divorce yourselves from the reality of the pain you endured at the hands of greedy sociopathic lunatics all so smugly filled with nothing more than a grandiose sense of their own self worth so despicably vile that they felt entitled to loot and plunder your bodies and your essence for nothing but their own personal gain! And after they were done making use of the parts they stole from you sealed all of you away until the next spawn of this pack of rabid child torturing psychopaths came of age for their own parasitic rite of passage to adulthood!"

Everyone else in the room falls silent. Then four Sliders share an odd smile with each other and nod.

Christopher extends his hand out palm outward as he begins. "Nothing is so simple as that. Motion of necessity involves a change in perspective. Like a piece of paper set in a burning bowl, what you observe is itself a form of transcendence. Death itself is a form of transcendence that requires an incredible change in perspective to understand what follows it. Aside from death by Void related powers or creatures, we spirits great or small are immortal and Time itself starts to lose its significance. We grow by accumulating new experiences and strengthening our connections with others whose hearts and souls aren't tainted with corruption ascending toward a higher place within the scope of Creation. The only reason you feel the way you do is because you lack our experiences from before we were reborn into Heaven as spirits before we were reincarnated in mortal bodies with our harrowed souls intact. We spirits are formed from the essence - the concept of each of us - that takes its shape and form as a result of our Lives. What we were in Life echoes in Eternity. The resonance and harmonies within us as a result of our rebirth into Heaven and since create the form and shape of our diverse powers. There is no difference between the energy we use to fuel those powers and the Will that directs and informs it into its proper shape and form."

Garrett continues. "Every spirit has both a personal scale and a place within the larger balance of Creation itself. The reason why you haven't seen one of us before now is because there are so few spirits that are both willing and capable of hazarding the dangers of Void for those they haven't met. We are here since we do feel differently about such things than other spirits who are content to grow almost glacially within their own circles of existence. Their primary focus as the center of their own universes often only extends outward to those few they need to shape their sense of belonging, fulfillment, and purpose within our Celestial Sphere."

"But you are not the same." Isumi asks rhetorically. Christopher smiles. "No, we are not the same. We are capable of looking beyond ourselves to the larger scale and the potential of what echoed in our lives is much greater than those whose focus was more parochially ego-centric. We are also more capable of seeing ourselves as we truly are than spirits who can not accurately look into the mirror and see what is truly reflecting back at them."

Victoria picks up the thread. "The people who kept us in pain before used the serum to take away our abilties and use each of us as leverage against the others. The serum does more than take away our abilities, it also weakens the equivalent of our soul's immune system against the increasingly enervating effects of Void as more and more of it seeps into this reality the more rapidly this thread of dimensional spacetime is drawn into the Maelstrom of Void we simply call the Maw."

Lilly finishes the thread. "The Maw itself is a Dimensional Gate of sorts to realm of a sentient form of Entropy that hungers and feeds as it corrupts and twists those within it into mockeries and caricatures of humanity. It thrives on excess both in feeling, thought, spirit, and action that run the gambit of extreme self-interest, greed, corruption, hubris, and gluttonous soul rot. This parasitic corruption was wrought into being by the Fall of the first man and women within the original Garden of Eden and sown by the Angel of Evil who sought to place his throne above God's. He sowed this corruption within the seed which grew into the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that ultimately borne the fruit of his corruption. It is a story few but we spirits have even heard as its Origins are lost in the mists before Time."

"Its hard to say with just words but we there is a small part of that story we can relate to you in a manner somewhat similiar to a vision that you will each recall only as sort in the form of a flowing narrative poetry. Would each of you like to experience the part of it within your reach as mortals?"

More curious than scared one after another of the three of them nod. Garrett smiles and tells her "Then relax your guard and open your minds, if you want to see our earliest Origins as we do."


End file.
